WarriorsWorld Podcast — Episode 15

The whole crew is in the studio as Sheed, Ben and myself talk the impressive 4-0 start to the road trip, big matchup with Miami and Stephen Curry and David Lee’s All-Star chances.

In our second segment we welcome ESPN’s Chris Palmer as we talk the flourishing Warriors, the perspective of their success on a national level, their outstanding rookie class, the Lakers demise and Chris’ encounter with Rihanna.

Finally, the crew answers questions from some listeners in our mailbag segment and discuss the departure of Matt Steinmetz from Comcast Sportsnet.

The Chris Palmer interview reminded me of a thought I’ve had for a while, which is that people are consistently missing when trying to gauge the overall value of the Monta trade. Obviously Bogut was the centerpiece of the deal, but not having Monta on the team allowed the Warriors to hand the ball to their manifest franchise player in Steph Curry, start Klay Thompson, their shooting guard of the future, and to draft Harrison Barnes (and probably the rest of our rookies). I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but last year’s tanking has been better for the team than any other aspect of that deal. Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli, and Draymond Green are certainly more of the reason that we’ve been winning than Bogut is. When you look at the Monta trade, you can’t just look at the players that were swapped, but all the other effects it’s had on the team to this point as well. Does anyone really think we’d be in this position with a starting 5 of Steph, Monta, probably Dorrell Wright, David Lee, and, I don’t know, Biedrins? To really assess the value of that trade, you have to include all of the dominoes that fell behind it. To me, that makes it a win on every level.